Potent Potions Or Poisons?

TOXIC HISTORIES: POISON AND POLLUTION IN MODERN INDIA By David Arnold
Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, Year 2017, pp. 241, $49.99

VOLUME XLI NUMBER 5 May 2017

David Arnold begins his book with an impressive but brief
survey of historic references to poison in India’s past. Poisons were widely
known in ancient India. For example, in several ancient Indian texts appears
the legend of vishkanya or poison-maiden, a woman whose body had been
impregnated with poison as she took incremental doses of poison. Any physical
intimacy with her could be fatal. As Sushruta Samhita mentions, ‘if she touches
you, her sweat can kill, if you make love to her, your penis drops off like a
ripe fruit from its stalk’ (p. 18).
The poison-maidens were most likely used to kill political
rivals and enemies, and this use of poison, to eliminate political rivals,
continued during the medieval times. The Mughal Emperors, as European
travelogues of the times reveal, killed their political rivals with the help of
‘killer khilat’. This special khilat (robe of honour) was impregnated with
poison, so that its wearer died a miserable death. The Mughals also eliminated
their political rivals by forcing them to drink post (a concoction of raw
opium).
Even in the modern times, poison remained a secret weapon of
assassination. In 1875, the Maharaja of Bikaner narrowly escaped when somebody
tried to assassinate him by concealing poison in his shoes. In 1883, Dayanand
Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj, was poisoned by his cook. Each of these
examples is fantastic, but the following one is equally precious. In 1874
Colonel Robert Phyare, the political agent of the Princely State of Baroda, one
day found an unpleasant metallic taste in his morning drink. The subsequent
laboratory analysis of the residue revealed that it contained diamond dust.
Since only a Maharaja could afford such an expensive method to poison someone,
Phyare believed that the Maharaja had tried to kill him. Toxic Histories
abounds with many such riveting tales of poisoning, but this is not what the
book is all about.
Arnold’s pioneering book is based on a new approach to study
the history of poison. In the West, historians have mostly studied the history
of poison in relation to the development of medical jurisprudence and
toxicology which Arnold has only marginally discussed in his book. Rather his
contribution lies in revealing how ‘poison’ was embedded in the socio-cultural,
political, and urban history of modern India. His study goes beyond the
confines of the laboratory to explore the bazaars of colonial India, where
poisonous substances were ...